Stottie

10th win for Howe. It took 22 games and came after zero wins in 11.

Great win. Clean sheet and look at the table!

Need fresh legs

Hard to say, because there would be more games with the pre-January squad, but he would have trained up and weeded out the existing players earlier. From the Norwich 1-1 with the Clark sending off on Dec 1 is 19 games, half a season, and the table for results since then is this.

Third top scorer now after Wilson and Maxi. From only 495 minutes on the pitch.

I think we are Wolves level already and the only issue is whether the new defensive solidity can be maintained as we add more creativity and play higher up the pitch. We've conceded more than a Wolves amount of goals under Howe, but well over half have been in blowout games where all three points were long gone. In the vast majority of Howe games, we've let in one or none. This is a major reason why we've managed all those comebacks in 2022. Before buying anyone, Trippier coming back improves us in both attack and defence, of course.

That's five home wins in a row isn't it? Fortress St. James.

Keep your pants on Bruno! What a player!

Decent in a couple of spells, just as they were. They scored from a well-worked corner and we did from a scrappy, poorly defended one. Some good work from Maxi, including passes to others who swifted effed up what were promising opportunities. More action in their box than ours, so the match is there to be won. If Targett had headed across from that clipped ball from Bruno, it would have been two-one.

Now that is weak goalkeeping. Nice one Bruno!

Ayoze playing for them.

On Five Live now covering the Atleti-Man City game. What a great lad.

This was in response to me and I have a lot of sympathy with it. It's the evolution vs. revolution debate though. Staveley etc. themselves have said that they want an evolution based approach. If the goal is for Top 6-8 next season, the bar is not that high and can be achieved through evolution of what we have. Howe has talked about team spirit across the camp. I reckon Top 6-8 can be achieved with maybe only two new first team players (attackers of course) and upgrades on Darlow, Krafth etc. To seriously challenge for Top 4, we need seven or eight new starters, which is massive investment and rips up the whole team leaving Bruno, Trippier and a few backups. Everyone else ends up in the "replace him" spotlight. We have come so far in a few short months with Howe, with a whole clearly exceeding the sum of the parts, and it would be nice to see how things can evolve further without rushing to replace Targett (as Villa did), Burn, Joelinton etc. with expensive players who may not prove to be significant upgrades. I don't think he's ultimately Top 4, but I'd like to see another season of ASM, or at least one season where he's not the team's only outball and can receive it thirty yards from their goal, not forty yards from ours. If big cash is to be spent, which I'm certainly not against, let it be on a forward or wide forward and not on a simple disruptor like Kalvin Phillips.

Since Howe's first game, Nov 20, we are eighth in the form table over what is now 20 games. One more point and a game in hand over West Ham in ninth. Twenty games is over half a season. I don't think we've been especially lucky over all twenty games. Most have been without Wilson, and the early ones had Lascelles as a starter and Joelinton as a striker, so I don't see how this twenty-game form could be dismissed as flukey or not a geniune indication of where the club currently is. I believe we are already eighth to tenth in the PL level. As the summer priority, we need to move out the deadwood, to complete the De-Ashleyfication if you like, and replace them with players capable with challenging for the first eleven. Assuming that we stick with 4-3-3, the main signings, as everyone says, should be a striker and wide forward. Targett too, but he's a given. If the initial goal is to thereabouts for a challenge for Europa League, I don't think we need wholesale changes, and would be tempted put them off until challenging for CL places becomes the goal. Spurs look like they are heading for fourth and that's with Conte, Kane, Son, .... That is streets ahead of what is at Wolves or West Ham, with a bigger jump from Spurs to West Ham than from West Ham to us. Zaha is out of contract in 2023, so he won't command an exhorbitant fee any more. He'd definitely improve the team and wouldn't look out of place at an Arsenal/Spurs level team, but is not one for the future. If the immediate goal for next season is just sixth or seventh, this would open up the possibility of using the season to bed in high-potential young players like Ekitike or that lad at Forest. The past twenty games have demonstrated that ninth is something that can be achieved with Krafth, Ryan Fraser, Murphy, pick your least favourite midfielder, and an off-form Wood up top. We're likely to have better players than all of them for the majority of games next year.

Despite losing two in a row, we still haven't conceded two in a game since Man City. Even with that game included, our record is 12 allowed in the last 12 matches. Tottenham are banging in the goals under Conte, but are still wildly inconsistent. Seven wins and five defeats in their last 12. No draws.

Since August 2019, Calvert Lewin has managed only 93 more league minutes than Callum Wilson. For the same money, easily north of 50M, you probably get Raphinha, so no thanks. Ekitike for me! A double punt on Ekitete and Brereton Diaz would be cool too.

With Mbappe and Pogba walking and PEA buying out his contract, I think things may be changing in the transfer market. Salah and Rashford are set up to walk in summer 2023. Player power has always existed, but perhaps not to this level. If the aim is Top 6-8, I don't think we need big names just yet. With the current focus on sportswashing in football due to Abramovich, it may be wise for the club to keep a lower profile and build through reasonable investment and undoing the competency gap that developed under Ashley. Harry Kane for example would vastly improve us as a team, of course he would, but at this point, three-quarters of the headlines would be "murderers trying to buy the league". For all the claims about sportswashing, I think the biggest objections people had to Chelsea and Man City were about unfair competition. Anything that can be claimed on that front will amplify the new-found concern about sportswashing. It didn't get many headlines, but the club has signed up with Statsbomb, the data analytics people. With the people Howe is putting in place, and the clear success we had in January, I have faith in the club finding good players who are not necessarily high profile. Good enough for Top 8 at least. We've just managed a third of a season of Top 6-8 form with a bottom six striker who hasn't even been on form.

TAA is wicked. I've always thought Liverpool fans over hype or or are at least overly defensive about Firmino, and think Jota has come in and proved it. The same buildup contribution, but 30-40% more shots and twice as many goals. Stats from this season and last. I thought we made Declan Rice look very ordinary at their place. At SJP under Bruce we just stood off and watched. As a rule, I think DMs, and especially English DMs soon get hyped.

I'd definitely keep Wilson. My temptation would be to use him as a tried and trusted fallback, and gamble on a potential sensation like Ekitike. If Howe likes Lingard, him on a free would also add proven quality and flexibility across the front line. I wonder what the Eddie Howe masterplan is. The 4-3-3 is working well, but may not be the intended destination. If so, the midfield situation completely changes. Just on the "Project", but if the next target is is Top 8, that should be possible without smashing the wage structure at this point. There will be clamour for big names in the summer and lots of agents and websites putting our name out there for attention, but I don't think we need big earners just yet. An overall strengthening, organization and squad unity should get us to that goal. Getting into the Top 4 is when you start needing superstars.

I reckon many destroyer-type DMs are overrated. My favourite DMs are all capable of playing box to box, even if the tactics don't let them, or double as playmakers.

Yeah, I remember that one! It was tagged "Chuckles the Clown, he's a barrel of laughs" or something like that. My favourite three panel strip from early Viz was "Tom And Gerry" (sic) The first panel was a Roy Lichtenstein-type big "Whaaapp!" exclamation. The second panel was a close-up of Tom saying "A-ha!" The third panel was zoomed out to Tom, next to Jerry dead in a mousetrap, saying "Got the bastard!"

Lingard provides decent cover for many different positions. Another bonus with him is that we can get him and Trippier to tap up Rashford to come on a free in summer 2023, when we should/hope to be a top half club looking to kick on and threaten the top 4. Pogba's walking and PEA just bought out his contract. The times they are a changing. In the meantime, if he was half up for it before we won six games out of eight, I'd be tempted to go back for Ekitike. Lingard costs nowt, Ekitike whatever, and spend the rest on replacing the last of the deadwood, maybe a CH like Botman if the funds are available. I wouldn't spend big on a DM unless the idea is to change formation. The three is working well and we've not really seen it in a match where we are playing through Trippier and Targett to a Ekitike/Wilson/Lingard/ASM level front line. I think that would get us solidly Top 8. If we do get there, that'll be where difficult decisions and big signings would have to be made to take the next step up.

Two defeats but both by single goals to pretty much the only good chances we allowed. In the 10 game form table, we are third below only Liverpool and City for fewest goals conceded (7). Despite these two defeats, our goal difference for the 10 games is still +6. To get relegated, we need to collapse from Champions League form to something like 4 points off 9 matches. That's pretty difficult for a team that hasn't conceded two in a match for three months.

I didn't think it was especially dangerous play and would have been happy with the ref's decision in real time. It was definitely cynical, but tactical fouls aren't subject to special treatment. Many of us will have thought their goalscoring attack should have been stopped in similarly cynical way.

Shit performance which would have been forgettable at 0-0, but ended up vexing as fuck due to the goal. We got an essentially free red card but were too leggy and clueless to do anything with it. We weren't able to stretch the play as we did against the 10 of Brentford. Second half blowing smoke, hoofing, and late conceding all reminscent of the Bruce era. It looks like the lads need a break. If its any recompense, this was a reschedule due to Covid from late December. Had we played it then, I think the result would have been the same, only with the points going to Rafa. I think Everton are in a much worse place now than if they'd got a win against us back then. Instead of having Lampard and Dele Alli, they would probably be in a late season Rafa revival.